Oathbound

I have at last got around to the final(?) volume in my favourite YA fantasy series. Tracy Deonn’s Legendborn Cycle plays absolutely fast and loose with Arthuriana. But, unusually for such things, it does so with great respect for the legend’s Welsh heritage. Oathbound is no exception.

Let’s recap. The Legendborn Order is a magical secret society set up after the Fall of Camelot to preserve the Round Table and continue its mission to protect the world from evil, specifically from demons. It does this in large part by selective breeding whereby certain families can effectively channel the spirits of the various key players and assume their power.

Except that, over the centuries, humanity has won out over the mission and the Order is now based in the USA and deeply corrupt. Not to mention misogynistic and racist. The heirs of Morgaine quit long ago and set up their own, rival organisation. What’s left is essentially a club for old, white men who happen to have rather a lot of magical power and no morals.

But, a few hundred years ago, an act of greed and lust by a leader of the Order resulted in the actual genetic heritage of Arthur going into a line descended from a female slave. And thus we have the Order’s greatest secret: the Scion of Arthur, the supposed leader of the Order, is actually a teenage Black girl called Briana Matthews.

Our heroes are the younger generation. We have Bree, her love interest Nick (Lancelot), their wild and unpredictable best friend Selwyn (Merlin) and so on. All this Arthurian stuff is tempered by the fact that Black people also have magic. Bree, of course, has both, which, makes her extra powerful.

When we last left them, Bree had just been kidnapped (semi-willingly) by the demon king Erebus (Annwn), who has been impersonating a leading member of the Order for many years to infiltrate and control them. He is trying to recover a magical crown, stolen from him by the original Merlin, and kept safe by the Morgaines, but has recently been stolen again. Bree, for her part, believes that she needs to learn from Erebus so as to be better able to face down both him and the Order, so she agrees to become his pupil. Making a deal with a demon king is, of course, a very risky business.

Meanwhile Nick is desperately searching for Bree and Selwyn, being Merlin, has gone mad. Well, he’s becoming a demon, which is kind of the same thing.

Of course there is also a romance to sort out. Bree and Nick went through the whole not trusting each other a long time ago, so now it is time for some serious Arthur/Lancelot fic, but with a gender-swapped Arthur. Much of this is managed through the cunning stratagem of having the pair of them trapped in the home of a powerful demon, at a society event for rich bastards (Deonn is thinking Gatsby but I am thinking Epstein Island) at which they end up having to be engaged. And for complex magical reasons Bree has forgotten who Nick is, and Nick is worried that he should not physically touch Bree. Cue relationship trauma.

There’s very little in the way of actual sex scenes, but Deonn does a magnificent job of describing how aroused Bree is by the handsome, muscular Nick. I think Nick is probably way too good to be true, but that’s because he is Lancelot. Anyway, Deonn had me lusting after him too, so I guess she’s done a good job.

This is the final book in a trilogy, so things mostly come out right in the end. But I’m not certain that this is the end for the characters as there is a lot more that could be done with the story. If there are more books, I will buy them,

Title: Oathbound
By: Tracy Deonn
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
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